Faculty

As an informal guide to faculty interests within the general subject areas of the biophysics program, the following groupings may be useful. It should be kept in mind that the interests and research of all faculty overlap significantly into other areas, and that a hallmark of the biophysics program is the degree of collaboration and interaction to be found between these groupings.

Structural & Chemical Biology

David Agard • Patricia Babbitt • Yifan Cheng • Roger Cooke • Charles Craik • Ken Dill • Pamela England • Robert Fletterick • Alan Frankel • Carol Gross • John Gross • Thomas James • Andrew Krutchinsky • Wendell Lim • Susan Miller • Daniel Minor • Geeta Narlikar • Richard Shafer • Brian Shoichet • Kevan Shokat • Robert Stroud • James Wells

Cell Biology & Genetics

David Agard • Joe DeRisi • Tejal Desai • Robert Edwards • John Fike • Carol Gross • John Gross • Mats Gustafsson • Lily Jan • Juan Korenbrot • Nevan Krogan • Wallace Marshall • Daniel Minor • Dyche Mullins • Daniel Pinkel • John Sedat • Ron Vale • Alan Verkman • Peter Walter • Orion Weiner • Jonathan Weissman

Bioinformatics & Computational Biology

Patricia Babbitt • Joe DeRisi • Ken Dill • Hana El-Samad • Thomas Ferrin • Mats Gustafsson • Matthew Jacobson • Tanja Kortemme • Nevan Krogan • Hao Li • Andrej Sali • Brian Shoichet • Chao Tang • Christopher Voigt

Complex Systems & Synthetic Biology

Joe DeRisi • Tejal Desai • Hana El-Samad • Loren Frank • Carol Gross • John Gross • Tanja Kortemme • Hao Li • Wendell Lim • Dyche Mullins • Philip Sabes • Andrej Sali • Chao Tang • Ron Vale • Christopher Voigt • Jonathan Weissman

Faculty	Email	Research
David Agard	agard@msg.ucsf.edu	Structure, function, and folding of proteins, chromosomes, and centrosomes
Patricia Babbitt	babbitt@cgl.ucsf.edu	Computational and experimental analysis of protein superfamilies for functional inference and enzyme design
Yifan Cheng	ycheng@biochem.ucsf.edu	Using molecular electron microscopy as a tool, we are interested in the structural and functional characterizations of macromolecules assemblies, including endocytotic machinery, clathrin coated vesicles, and protein degradation machinery, proteasome.
Roger Cooke	cooke@cgl.ucsf.edu	Motility of motor proteins, myosin and kinesin; muscle physiology, muscle fatigue.
Charles Craik	craik@cgl.ucsf.edu	Protein engineering, mutagenesis, heterologous gene expression, enzyme mechanisms and inhibitor design.
Joe DeRisi	joe@derisilab.ucsf.edu	Malaria gene expression profiling, functional genomics, microarrays
Tejal Desai	tejal.desai@ucsf.edu	Micro and nanofabrication approaches to tissue engineering scaffold design; implantable and oral drug delivery platforms; Surface modification for enhanced biorecognition, targeting, and biocompatibility.
Ken Dill	dill@maxwell.ucsf.edu	Statistical mechanics of biomolecules, protein and RNA folding, solvation
Robert Edwards	robert.edwards@ucsf.edu	Molecular analysis of neurotransmitter release; biophysical methods to study mechanisms underlying active transport.
Hana El-Samad	helsamad@biochem.ucsf.edu	Computational biology/stochastic biological dynamics; modeling of biological systems
Pamela England	england@picasso.ucsf.edu	Ion channel structure-function, synaptic plasticity.
Thomas Ferrin	tef@cgl.ucsf.edu	Molecular graphics; scientific visualization; computational chemistry; bioinformatics; structure-based drug design
John Fike	jfike@itsa.ucsf.edu	Radiation biology, normal tissue response; computed tomography; magnetic resonance spectroscopy; hyperthermia.
Robert Fletterick	flett@msg.ucsf.edu	Structure and function of proteins, using x-ray crystallography and molecular genetics.
Loren Frank	loren@phy.ucsf.edu	The study of the role of the hippocampus and adjacent cortical regions in learning and memory.
Alan Frankel	frankel@cgl.ucsf.edu	RNA-protein recognition; structures of peptide-RNA complexes; prediction of RNA structure; structure and function of HIV Tat protein.
Carol Gross	cgross@cgl.ucsf.edu	Regulation of gene expression.
John Gross	jdgross@picasso.ucsf.edu	Structural biology and mechanism of gene specific translation control; RNA turnover; macromolecular NMR spectroscopy.
Mats Gustafsson	mats@msg.ucsf.edu	Development and application of ultra-high resolution light microscopy.
Matthew Jacobson	matt@cgl.ucsf.edu	Fundamental principles of physical chemistry and biological applications specifically modeling proteins and protein-ligand complexes using physics-based methods
Thomas James	james@picasso.nmr.ucsf.edu	RNA-protein recognition; RNA, DNA and protein structure and dynamics; development of drugs targeting RNA.
Lily Jan	lily.jan@ucsf.edu	Structure-function studies of potassium channels in mammalian heart and hippocampus.
Juan Korenbrot	juan.korenbrot@ucsf.edu	Transduction in photoreceptors and functional development of the retina.
Tanja Kortemme	kortemme@cgl.ucsf.edu	Computational biology, prediction and design of protein interactions and networks, synthetic biology
Nevan Krogan	krogan@cmp.ucsf.edu	Functional Insights from Genetic and Physical Interaction Maps
Andrew Krutchinsky	krutcha@picasso.ucsf.edu	Development of mass spectrometry based tools for studying proteins, protein interacting partners and protein modifications.
Hao Li	haoli@genome.ucsf.edu	Bioinformatics, genome sequence analysis, gene regulation
Wendell Lim	lim@cmp.ucsf.edu	Structure-function studies of potassium channels in mammalian heart and hippocampus.
Wallace Marshall	wmarshall@biochem.ucsf.edu	How the three-dimensional geometry of cells can be generated from the one-dimensional genome. Engineering and physical principles that underlie cellular morphogenesis.
Susan Miller	smiller@cgl.ucsf.edu	Enzyme mechanisms emphasizing redox systems, protein-protein interactions and structure-function relationships of mechanisms of regulation and catalysis.
Daniel Minor	daniel.minor@ucsf.edu	Molecular Basis of electrical signalling; Ion channel structure, function, and modulation. Membrane protein structure.
Dyche Mullins	dyche@mullinslab.ucsf.edu	Cellular signaling systems controlling the three-dimensional organization of the actin cytoskeleton.
Geeta Narlikar	gnarlikar@biochem.ucsf.edu	Mechanisms of chromatin remodeling
Daniel Pinkel	pinkel@cc.ucsf.edu	Development of techniques for fluorescence hybridization and image analysis and their application to the study of cancer.
Philip Sabes	sabes@phy.ucsf.edu	Learning and adaptation in sensorimotor control: human psychophysics, neurophysiology, and computational methods.
Andrej Sali	sali@salilab.org	Computation grounded in the laws of physics and evolution to study the structure and function of proteins
John Sedat	sedat@msg.ucsf.edu	Organization and architecture of chromosomes; three-dimensional microscopy
Richard Shafer	shafer@cgl.ucsf.edu	Biophysical chemistry of DNA and drug-DNA complexes.
Brian Shoichet	shoichet@cgl.ucsf.edu	Molecular docking, structure-based inhibitor discovery, beta-lactamase activity-stability-evolution, and crystallography.
Kevan Shokat	shokat@cmp.ucsf.edu	Chemical tools for studying cellular signaling cascades; protein engineering; organic synthesis.
Robert Stroud	stroud@msg.ucsf.edu	Structure and function of cell-surface receptors; communication between macromolecules; mechanisms of transmembrane signaling; drug design.
Chao Tang	chao.tang@ucsf.edu	Design and organization principles of biological systems; quantitative study and systems analysis of biological networks; systems biology.
Ron Vale	vale@cmp.ucsf.edu	Mechanism of microtubule-based motor proteins.
Alan Verkman	verkman@itsa.ucsf.edu	Molecular mechanisms of water and anion transport; novel fluorescence methods to study living cells.
Christopher Voigt	cavoigt@picasso.ucsf.edu	Design and evolution of gene circuits and pathways.
Peter Walter	walter@cgl.ucsf.edu	Protein sorting and organelle biogenesis.
Orion Weiner	orion.weiner@ucsf.edu	How cells generate polarity; cell migration; chemotaxis.
Jonathan Weissman	weissman@cmp.ucsf.edu	Mechanism of molecular chaperones and protein folding in vivo.
James Wells	jim.wells@ucsf.edu	Small molecule drug discovery; drug mechanisms as they relate to apoptosis and cancer.